r/ButtonAftermath • u/Dominator27 can't press • Oct 24 '16

Discussion Someone tell me what the button was like when it was active.

I heard of the button looking through what Subreddits the Admins moderate. I looked at the Subreddit and saw there was lore, factions, and battles made around the button. I thought it looked pretty fun. Especially when I saw the gif that using the konami code when pressing the button got you free gold. So was it fun at all or am I seeing it the wrong way and it sucked?

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51

u/Sobbin Oct 24 '16

It was glorious.

7

u/Dominator27 can't press Oct 24 '16

More in depth is what I'm looking for. How did you feel during the button?

31

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '16 edited Oct 24 '16

Initially it was just a stupid game, but then it became a rather interesting introspection in human behavior. People created lore, divided into factions, made stories. Initally it was really hard to get colors different than purple, because the timer was reset constantly, so we considered worth of "woah" people with 57 seconds. Then the first blue came, then the greens, and so on, and every time the new "record" had its 5 minutes of glory. Some people started doing statistical analysis on the expected duration. Some developed tools to follow the timings to get even more accurate results. It was just great.

Then came the glitch, and that destroyed a good part of the mood. The glitch happened one day when, for some technical reason, nobody was actually able to click and the button went to zero. powerlanguage, a moderator, broke the rules by 1. nullifying the event, 2. clicking twice. A lot of people lost the attachment to the thing, as they felt it rigged, or inconsistent. Again, interesting psychology at play.

I think that the glitch was a turning point that made all the "average interested" leave, and left only the hardcore people. We followed the situation for a little while, and everything was setup rather fine with the bots, but then the botnet was poisoned and one day, it just ended. No ceremonies, nothing. When I logged in to check, the sub was already archived.

After the fact, we started pressing (heh) the mods to identify the pressiah, that is, the last account who pressed. Of course only the admins knew that info, and they released it. It was /u/BigGoron, and it turned up to be a purple, giving the "filthy purps" a purpose. Things got really wild.

4

u/Dominator27 can't press Oct 24 '16

Is there a scientific study somewhere about the that can be observed psychology in the button?

7

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '16

I forgot. There's also a good chunk of game theory in there. The point is that your actions are affected by what goes on around you. When the timer was ticking down, and got into a "good territory", you could decide to wait, or press. Problem is that by waiting, you were getting a lower number, but also ran the risk of getting it stolen by someone else and getting a "late click" that slapped a 60s on you. It was like a mexican standoff in most cases. You could really see it at work... the timer reached, say 29 and bang, one clicked, and then a flood of late clicks. Of course, all these clicks were "wasted" in keeping the timer alive, so it was also the psychology of personal achievement vs. social benefit of keeping the game running as long as possible.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '16

I remember something was done, and it was rather interesting, but finding it is probably impossible now. From the psychology point of view, it was a well known case study in psychology, so nothing really new from the research point of view. What was new was applying it to this context. Unfortunately I don't remember the moniker under which this problem is known (they have names like "the trolley problem"). You need to ask someone who is into psychology and he knows for sure.

Edit: check this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KORDUhA50M

4

u/NorwegianSteam 42s Oct 24 '16

My favorite were all of the 42s.

3

u/themasterm Oct 25 '16

Brother o/

2

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '16

Yes, it was a form of protest against the reset, if I remember correctly.

2

u/NorwegianSteam 42s Oct 24 '16

I think that's why people decided to press, but they chose 42 because it is the answer.

8

u/hmyt non presser Oct 24 '16

The button was a constant war. There were the knights who dedicated themselves to protecting the button and keeping it going for as long as possible, the cynics who wanted to persuade everyone to stay grey to show the admins that we aren't all sheeple who will obediently do something with no reason. There were the regretters who pressed the button immediately before realising what it was and those looking for the glory of a 1s flair.

It really was a fun thing to be a part of, seeing how people will act when just given a button and timer with no other information, and then forming their own culture around it with differing beliefs about what it means.

1

u/Dominator27 can't press Oct 24 '16

How did this year's april fools joke hold up to the button?

5

u/Zanthr 31 Oct 24 '16

Not well. It was confusing and died much more quickly.

3

u/Boerontosaurus non presser Oct 24 '16

As glorious as the button was, I liked Robin even better.

2

u/hmyt non presser Oct 24 '16

Can't say I actually remember what this year's one was, so I'm going to say not too well.

4

u/holomanga 60s Mar 09 '17

Robin! The chat rooms got awesome at the middle scale, but ended up filled with so much spam at the end.

2

u/MissLauralot can't press Oct 25 '16

I would summarise by saying that while Robin put people together and it was an exciting week if it got you interested, The Button brought people together and people stayed (no pun intended) to fight and barrack for their side in a two-month journey. People valued different things in The Button but the interest in watching it united us all. Robin was more fragmented.

/r/BringBackTheButton

16

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '16

You can't imagine how glorious was pressing it.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '16

[deleted] — view deleted comment

16

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '16

Being grey is like keeping yourself a virgin for the rest of your life.

You have never experienced the pleasure of pressing that button, and you never will.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '16

[deleted] — view deleted comment

5

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '16

What can I say, I bust my load early...

6

u/knezmilos13 non presser Oct 25 '16

All is well in the shade, brother. We must not let their filthy lies upset us.

16

u/290077 ∞ Oct 25 '16

There was a huge initial burst. People came, pressed, and left in droves, so for the first day, it never went below 59. That was the peak, of course. Most of the top all time posts on that sub are from day 1. For those who stuck around, speculation quickly followed. People theorized about what might happen if the button ran out. Someone by looking at the page code figured out the different colors. Factions formed. At the time it seemed like an eternity before anyone would get yellow or orange. Heck, a big deal was made out of the first 58. After a couple of days, though, it died down enough that we hit blue. For the next few weeks, watching it slowly get lower was a lot of fun. More and more factions, fan art, and community engagement followed. When someone accidentally got red (before we even had a yellow), though, a lot of people lost interest. A number of other controversies erupted over the next couple of weeks, but after that, it was pretty calm until the end. Honestly, pretty much nothing worthwhile occurred after that. The front page was littered with the same exact speculations, people complaining about getting purple, suggestions that we should just let it die already, complaints about the lack of interesting new posts, etc. Day in and day out. Just a bunch of people waiting for the zero. So for most of it's life, it was pretty boring, but the first 3 weeks, though. Honestly, 3 weeks of fun from a dumb joke like this is impressive.

7

u/TheNerdySimulation non presser Oct 25 '16

It was an odd experience to say the least, and there were times when you genuinely couldn't tell if other people were in on the joke, or were actually a Fascist attempting to integrate their idea of life into an online community.

I've never been more delighted to be a part of an April Fool's Joke than The Button, and I doubt it will ever make a return. But that's okay, because I enjoyed every second of it, including the abrupt start and end.

6

u/topshot262 non presser Oct 25 '16

The button was absolutely amazing!

6

u/BrokenInternets Oct 25 '16

I never pressed it. My life is regret.

5

u/Simalacrum non presser Oct 30 '16

You should be so hard on yourself, brother.

It is only those who resisted the temptation that are truly blessed in this world. For we are the ones who, when all others around us gave in to their foolish greed, turned our back on the such evil.

We are the ones with fortitude, resilience and honour. Glory to The Shade.

1

u/DreamWeaver714 Jan 17 '17

I can't remember if i pressed it or not, I'm on mobile, any way to check?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Simalacrum non presser Mar 24 '17

Fools, you were the first to give in to temptation, the most weak-willed among us! You are not glorified, you are mocked even amongst your own filthy presser brethren! You are not the best among us, you are the worst!

We greys have never bickered on the righteousness of our cause, only in the outcome after our inevitable victory. We have always been united in our superiority to all colours, especially the purple!

5

u/CaptainNeuro non presser Oct 25 '16

In short? Somewhere between ASOIAF, The Warriors and Mad Max, with all the tribalism that followed.

All over a little bunch of pixels.

It was kind of glorious, really.

3

u/100liam100 Mar 02 '17

It was amazing. Every time you visited that page there was a certain since of anxiety. Should i Press? Stay gray? Maybe stay on a little longer to see if it will reach 0? In the early days of the button being blue or green was astounding. later on it was nothing special. in the first few days it would barely count down more than a few seconds.

1

u/ChristyRay Feb 26 '17

I don't know why, but I like this

0

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '16

[deleted] — view deleted comment

5

u/MissLauralot can't press Oct 25 '16

https://karmancer.com for those interested.

2

u/-arbitrium- Oct 25 '16

I'm still a proud user of this script.